@vagabanno
The intensity with which you are trying to destroy my credibility reeks of hate and despair. Those emotions should be completely absent of a discussion about scientific issues.
If you think I am a crackpot, as you have explicitly and oftentimes not so subtly, made clear, then there is only one rational attitude you should adopt.

Ignore me.

Unless of course you think that you should protect the world, science and this forum from my pernicious ideas.

In such a case, your crusade would be understandable and your zeal would do you honor.

As it is, I fear that I have lost any bit of respect for you as intellectuals and consider continuing a sterile dialogue utterly senseless.

Do yourself a favor and go play somewhere else. There is nothing you could say that could entice me to reply to your attacks.

@VagabondSpectre

I wonder why you are back. Hadn't you decided that enough is enough?

Well, I fell the same way. Good day to you.

The issue is not one of contradiction since, indeed, two different persons from two different frames of reference have two different beliefs.

As I see it the issue is: how come we know that? Where is the knowing subject standing? What is his own frame of reference?

It looks very much like a god-like perspective to me.

Yes, I have read it. And, if you have read this thread, you will know that I do not agree with it. It considers light not as a local phenomenon, but as an independent one. The difference with Huygens being that he indeed considers it as made of corpuscles. I have to add that Newton was very circumspect and never really showed his hand, hiding behind his non fingo hypotheses and preferring to concentrate on the description of what he saw. It was more his followers that really took a stand, encouraged by Newton's lack of endorsement of Huygens analysis.

yes, the title is in old English "Opticks". What is your point if I may ask?

I would like to go a step further and consider theories that not only predict correct observations but also allow practical implementation.

The temptation is great in thinking that these kind of theories somehow should be considered as "true".

I would like to point out that the difference between theories which can be put in practice and those that allow passive observations and predictions only is more a difference of level than nature.

It might be hard to see, but practical implementations are no more a proof of "truth" than mere observations. They are certainly a very serious indication of the usefulness of the theory.

There is an implicit caveat. Observations are theory guided for a large part. And that is in fact one of the reasons why scientific ideas and convictions change with time. A theory can therefore never be said to be absolutely correct on the basis of observations. It does mean that it should be considered superior to theories which have no apparent empirical basis.

I agree

or less.

Still, contemporary theories are much more parsimonious than Ptolemy's and they can predict much more than Ptolemy could even imagine.
. — litewave

I have no problem with that. Except that you should be careful about the second part.

They correctly describe a much larger portion of reality than Ptolemy's theory did. — litewave

Correct is always a judgment carried by a scientific community at a certain period. We have no idea what the science community will say over 1000 years or more.

The correctness of the predictions of the Ptolemaic geocentric theory followed from the correspondence between the mathematical properties of the theory and the mathematical structure of the universe, not from the assumption of angels. — litewave

This is a very modern reading of Ptolemy that does not do justice to the (metaphysical) beliefs that held all theories together. Correct calculations were of course a prerequisite for any astronomical theory. But these calculations had to be embedded in a view of the universe that cost Giordano Bruno his life at the staple, and compelled Galileo to recant.

Nowadays Physics is still embedded in a view of the universe, and we are still trying to figure out the correct view. There are still people who think that God does not play dice, while others vote for a more probabilistic/random approach.

It would be therefore a mistake to approach Physics as a clinical endeavor whose propositions are only dictated by logic and observable facts.

In fact, at a certain level, "facts" are almost entirely theoretical constructs.

And why do some stories give more correct predictions than others? — litewave

It would be a mistake to distinguish between "true" and "untrue" or "false" theories. Theories that permit correct predictions are not necessarily true. They can be said to be consistent with reality, but that is really all we can say about them, however long they remain the sole alternative.

In the time of the Ancient Greeks, angels were thought to push the planets around, and Ptolemy had no trouble incorporating this belief in his theory... which by the way allowed astronomers to make many correct predictions.

You are still sticking to a formalistic approach which, while, again formally, correct, is rather sterile.
@litewave has a more concrete approach in mind, and your discussion will I am afraid go nowhere.

An inconsistent aspect of the universe is nonsense.
— litewave

Unprovable and evidence-free metaphysical claim. — fishfry

I have no problem agreeing with you on this point, but then you have also to admit the following proposition:

An inconsistent universe is a metaphysical claim.

agreed.

That it moves around the Earth? — litewave

how do you know that?

But even if no one sees the moon or talks about it, the moon is still there and so it has its identity. — litewave

Yes. What more can you tell me about the moon?

Do you think there was no moon before any mind observed it? — litewave

Of course not. The problem is talking about the moon without in someway being there to see it.

I am afraid I have lost one post. I thought it had already been posted, but that is not the case.
It preceded my last one. I think it went something like this.


RT tries to explain what happens in each individual frame of reference. But to do that it must know which frame of reference is moving relative to the other. The only way it can do that is to measure time dilation and space contraction.

That in turn presupposes a neutral frame of reference from which these measurements can be done.

End of relativity, and welcome to Newton who could could get back in via the window.

An observer in a frame of reference knows that he is moving because of acceleration. But that is something only he can experience, not somebody outside of this frame.
Acceleration is also beyond the realm of SR and belongs to General Relativity.

Being consistent can be understood as having an identity, being identical to oneself, and so it is a property of things in general, not just of statements. — litewave

I am afraid your approach leads to a philosophical dead end. Speaking of things as they are without an observer or a mind is a very difficult metaphysical position to take.

Special relativity in being an empirical theory is, like with any scientific theory, only designed to account for empirical observations obtainable in the first-person. — sime

This is exactly what RT is not. If there has ever been a god-like perspective then it is that of RT. How else could you explain time dilation and space contraction? Observers in their own frame of reference do not experience it.

agreed.

perhaps it's more correct to say that only logically consistent statements describe reality. — Michael

I do not agree with this implicit shift from rationality to formal consistency. Physics is not a set of syllogisms or formal logical argumentations as can be found in text books.

Rationality is more than being able to be put in a logical form. It is the ability of the human mind to construct an explanation of the world that makes sense to him

A logicist approach is a sterile approach.

If you mean by that that our assumptions, however rational, can be wrong and infirmed empirically, then I can only agree with you.

But the infirming itself is rational in the sense that it does not throw logic overboard.

Something QT is very proud of doing under the pretext that at a certain level other rules apply.

That is a metaphysical assumption that has never been empirically sustained. It seems very often to be confirmed, but only if you accept the original assumption.

how is it not?

For the rat, the lab is the universe. And we, as human beings, can certainly be compared to this rodent.

You are again playing with words. It is true that actions cannot contradict each other, only ideas and propositions.
But actions are guided by ideas and logic. And that is what we are talking about.

To take the example of the lab rat, it can decide than springing when the bell sounds might be the right action to perform to avoid an electric shock. If successful, the next time the bell sounds the logical "thing" to do is to jump. The action inherits its logical status from the previous reasoning.

But what happens if the next time the rat still gets an electric shock?
The answer is obvious: utter confusion.

With a sadist psychologist the lab rat has no chance of winning. The only hope for the rat is that the scientist himself is a rational being.

That is what we expect the universe to be: rational. That is the only way for us to find out when we have to jump.

Maxwell's conception of light has to be distilled from all his remarks on the phenomenon since he never explicitly studied the object, at least not in his treatise [There are some remarks on optics but they were never really worked out to a full fledged analysis, Maxwell not trusting his powers of observation in this matter].
A search of his famous Treatise on the term "light" yields, besides irrelevant homonyms, one single conclusion: Maxwell never considered light as anything else but a by-product of electricity. One can read his comments on glow, spark and electrical images and be easily convinced.
In fact, speaking of electrical images (chapter VII), he takes the optical phenomenon as the basis to try and explain electrical images:
"100.] The idea of an image is most easily acquired by considering the optical phenomena on account of which the term image was first introduced into science."

Another interesting moment is par.149 ff where he speaks of light phenomena as observed through a spectrometer. His conclusion is certainly worth quoting:
"... neither the electric fluid, if there be such a substance, nor any etherial medium such as is supposed to pervade all ordinary matter is rendered luminous during the discharge, for if it were so its spectrum would be visible in all discharges."

The spectrometer shows him beyond doubt that the different lines one witnesses when analyzing light from different substances that they cannot come from anything else besides the substances themselves.
In other words, no light without matter, since neither the "electric fluid" nor the the "etherial medium" - Maxwell still believes in the ether- can be rendered luminous.

This short analysis shows that my conception of light as a local phenomenon created by the collision of e.m waves and matter is certainly compatible with Maxwell's own analysis.

You are playing with words. The world either is rational, in the sense that our logic is applicable to it, or it is not.
Rationality is a condition for survival. Just look at a rat in a lab maze, and how it tries to decipher the psychologist's intentions!

The question is not addressed to me, still, I will give my own opinion on this matter.

I think your question in itself would be considered biased by the proponents of Quantum Theory because you make it sound as though it is based on a metaphysical decision.

I think QT is a metaphysical theory, but one embedded in science and which makes use of scientific methods.

I would also be the last one to put a stamp of non-scientificity on all its findings because of these metaphysical bases.

QT is a scientific theory and must be treated as such.

To reject its metaphysical assumptions, as Einstein did, is I think not sufficient. His efforts can also be considered historically as failed attempts.

The discussion must not get stuck in metaphysical assertions to and fro but must ultimately be fought on the empirical field.

It looks like QT has the home advantage and that many of its predictions have been confirmed empirically.

I do not think that it the case. I am convinced, and I will present no proof for this conviction, that most confirmations in fact assume that which has to be proven.

The link I have given is just one example of how the epistemological analysis of QT arguments could look like.

I have also to admit to the limit of my endeavors. Like I said, the fight will have to be fought on the empirical field, and not at the metaphysical or philosophical level.

That means that ultimately the fight will have to be fought by physicists, and not by philosophers. The latter can only show that it is possible to build a metaphysical alternative to QT.

I claim that reality can contain no contradiction in the classical logic sense, so I don't accept a logic that allows reality to contain a classical contradiction. — litewave

You took the words right out of my mouth. I don't need to sleep on it.

I wrote that almost one year and a half ago. I haven't thought about this issue since, but I think I can still stand behind what I said.
https://philpapers.org/post/15494

What is inconsistent about non-locality? — litewave

what is consistent about non-locality?

If you believe that, as I do, then you cannot believe in non-locality.

I really do not care what you think. I am not supporting you. I have very little respect for you.

And no, non-locality is not an observation. The fact that you can say that without hesitation proves to me once more how little you understand about science. Even if you think you know a lot.

Out of respect for the thread, I will not try and fight our differences here. In fact I do not see, as little as you do, why we should continue the fight anyway.

That's of course not the same as saying that modern physics is illogical — Banno

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with the logic of modern physics as far as I can see. Once you accept their assumptions of, for instance, non-locality, you can argue quite logically for a conclusion that supports it.

It would be too simple to limit the discussion of modern physics to a simple formalism. Just like classic physics, it makes use of all aspects of human thinking.

metaphysically speaking?

would be so kind then as to restore the original title of this thread?

I would propose to move all my threads in Philosophy of Science to the Questions section.
Maybe then a rational discussion will be possible.

edit: but please do not change anything to the titles or the text!